Roger Penrose

The Great Math Mystery

Dan McCabe, Richard Reisz

Jay O. Sanders, Glenn Kalison

NOVA leads viewers on a mathematical mystery tour -- a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. But where does math get its power? Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists and engineers, follows math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond, all leading to the ultimate riddle: Is math an invention or a discovery? Humankind's clever trick or the language of the universe?

A Brief History of Time

Errol Morris

Stephen Hawking, Isobel Hawking

This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, classmates, and peers are interviewed not only about his theories but the man himself.

Stephen Hawking and The Theory of Everything

Gary Johnstone

Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose

Twenty years after A Brief History of Time flummoxed the world with its big numbers and black holes, its author, Stephen Hawking, concedes that the "ultimate theory" he'd believed to be imminent - which would conclusively explain the origins of life, the universe and everything - remains frustratingly elusive. Yet despite his failing health and the seeming impossibility of the task, Hawking is still devoted to his work; an extraordinary drive that's captured here in fleeting interview snippets and footage of the scientist sharing a microwave dinner with some fawning PhD students. Though the pop-science tutorials that dapple the first of this two-part biography are winningly perky, Hawking, alas, remains as tricky to fathom as his boggling quantum whatnots

The Art of the Impossible: M.C. Escher and Me

Roger Penrose

Dutch graphic artist MC Escher created some of the most famous graphic illusions in 20th century popular culture. He inspired artists, designers and film directors. Yet his most profound impact was on a different field to art entirely – mathematics. Cosmologist Professor Sir Roger Penrose is one of the world’s leading mathematicians. His research into black holes with Stephen Hawking transformed our understanding of the big bang. In this film, coinciding with the first ever major UK retrospective of Escher’s work Professor Penrose now reveals how his own mathematical sketches inspired some of Escher’s best-known masterpieces.